You know I said I wasn't going to have time to do this, but so many people have asked that I had to do it.
NEW FOR 2009: Rather than taking the prizes from the entry fees, I will be covering them. This means that 100% of your entry fee goes to fight MS!
Want a chance to have fun while helping out a great cause? The 4th Photo Tournament MS is under way. This is a single-elimination bracket tournament, in the style of the NCAA basketball tournament. Entry fees are in the form of a donation of at least $20 to help fight MS.
The goal is to run a 64-person tournament, with a top prize of $200. The second-place finisher (the person eliminated in the final round) will win $100, and each of the other two quarter-finalists will win $50. If 32 or fewer entries are received, prized will be halved to reflect the greater chance of winning.
This tournament is tentatively scheduled to begin with the new Exclusive Open challenges announced at 12:00:01 AM on Wednesday, 21 October. The tournament organizer reserves the right to defer this by one week, but the challenge will not begin earlier than this date.
ALL PROCEEDS will be donated to the National MS Society as part of my fundraising for the MS Challenge Walk.
OFFICIAL RULES
1. This contest is not run by or associated with DPChallenge.com.
3. The tournament is open to the first sixty-four (64) entrants whose entry fees are received by the organizer, beginning at the time of this post, end ending upon receipt of the 64th donation, or at 11:59:59 PM on 15 October 2009 19 October 2009. Immediately after donating, entrants must visit my profile page and PM me with their real name (as given with their donation) and their DPC username so I can reserve their place in the tournament.
4. The tournament organizer reserves the right to extend the registration deadline if fewer than 64 entries have been received.
5. Donations are non-refundable once made.
6. Once the seeds are announced, brackets are final.
7. The group will be randomly divided into four groups of sixteen (16) participants each. Within each group, the participants will be ranked by the following statistics on their DPChallenge profile pages as of the date the bracket assignments are calculated:
* a. Average Vote Received, with ties broken by
* b. Number of Ribbons Received (excluding invitational challenges), with remaining ties broken by
* c. Number of Blue Ribbons Received (excluding invitational challenges), with remaining ties broken by
* d. Number of Red Ribbons Received (excluding invitational challenges), with remaining ties broken by
* e. Highest score received, with remaining ties broken by
* f. Coin toss
8. If the contest is run with less than 64 entrants, “byes” will be seeded randomly.
9. For the first round, the highest ranked entrant in each group will be paired (“seeded”) with the lowest ranked entrant in that group. The second highest entrant will be paired with the second lowest entrant, and so forth. The brackets will be organized so that the higher seeds in each pair are arranged in the same manner in each succeeding round (the winner of 1/16 plays the winner of 8/9, winner of 2/15 plays winner of 7/10, etc). The semifinal and final rounds will be seeded by comparing the statistics of the highest seeded entrants in each group.
10. The contest will consist of one round each week. Each entrant competes by entering either regularly scheduled “Exclusive Open” challenge on DPChallenge which begins Tuesday night at midnight, as indicated by the time listed on the DPChallenge.com web site. In each pair, the entrant with the highest score will be the winner of that round and will advance to the next round (or, in the final round, will win the tournament). Ties will be broken by
* a. Number of comments received during voting
* b. Votes of “10” as percentage of total votes received, followed by “9,” “8,” etc.
* c. Coin toss
11. If a participant does not enter a weekly challenge or that participant's entry is disqualified, during voting, that participant forfeits the tournament. In the event that two directly-competing entrants both forfeit, neither entrant will advance. A participant competing against a vacant slot is considered to have a “bye” and need not enter a photograph that week to advance. Entrants are solely responsible to submit their entries. Extensions will not be granted for any reason, including failure of the DPChallenge web site, or inability of any entrant or entrants to submit entries on a timely basis.
12. Due to the nature of the DPChallenge voting, winners of a round will not be known until the entries for the next round are due. Winners for each round will nonetheless be announced as soon as possible after DPChallenge voting is complete, but may be revised in the event of a DPChallenge disqualification up to one week after the results of the weekly challenge are posted.
13. The contest organizer may request that any entry by reviewed by DPChallenge for compliance with the DPChallenge rules, for any reason or for no reason. DPChallenge is under no obligation to honor that request.
14. Prizes: One (1) grand prize of $200 USD will be paid to the overall winner of the tournament. One (1) first prize of $100 USD will be paid to the entrant eliminated in the final round. Two (2) second prizes of $50 USD each will be paid to the entrants eliminated in the semi-final round. If a forfeit or series of forfeits results in a vacancy at the semi-final or final round, that prize will not be awarded.
15. The tournament organizer may not enter or win.
16. All decisions of the tournament organizer are final.
Glad to see you could put this together at the last minute. This is a fun way to help out. Appears I'm first one in, hope I'm not the first one out....Lol. Good Luck and Lets have some fun!
Sent my donation before you announced this - can I still be in?
Very fair question.
Part of my motivation for running the contest is that if I can fill the bracket, I'll hit my goal. Given that I'm kicking in $400 of my own money to cover the prizes, I'd really like the entry fees to be additional donations wherever possible. That said, I don't want to exclude anyone unfairly. Anyone who donated previously and can't do an additional $20 can PM me and I'll count you in.
Terry - donated another $30. That's all I can do right now with surgery less than a week away I will be out of work for at least 4 weeks. I hope you reach your goal.
Enter me in the contest. Even with back surgery, I can still point and shoot my camera for an entry.
